


By Accident or Design

by cuddlesome



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Amputation, Blood, Burns, Canon-Typical Violence, Evil Wins, Kidnapping, Obsessive Behavior, Self-Harm, Slasher Horror, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-17
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-08-31 13:43:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8580745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuddlesome/pseuds/cuddlesome
Summary: Kylo Ren wins out on Starkiller.





	1. Chapter 1

Kylo Ren does not expect the swings that he makes with his saber as the scavenger scrambles up the side of the outcropping to connect. Not really. He does not have the precise readout of marks of contact on the body that Luke Skywalker had him memorize years ago when he learned the basics of Shii-Cho. His mind is awash with boiling, foaming anger. Only some deeply-ingrained instinct or, perhaps if he wants to idealize, the Force causes him to make a mad slash for the Cho Mok point of contact when she exposes it.

 

And so, before conscious thought even catches up with what he is doing, the flame-toothed mess of his lightsaber cuts through her leg just below the knee.

 

_WWWrrrRRRRRRRRrRKKSSHWRRRRwRRR **sssSSHHHHKSSSK**!_

 

The powerful, beautiful, awful scavenger girl goes down in a tumble of slush and crumbled rock that belies the regality with which she had ignited his grandfather’s lightsaber. Kylo winces before he can stop himself at the sound of her piteous scream as she falls.

 

Her disembodied foot and bit of leg falls into a snowbank, not visible except for a bit of ragged char peeking out over the smooth white.

 

The lightsaber, ghost-blue blade extinguishing, hits with the same defeated appearance as when he had thrown it from the traitor’s hands; just a filigreed cylinder of metal again.

 

The snow makes her own impact seem cushiony soft, the effect added to with the upward puff of powder that accompanies it.

 

Kylo knows better. She is stunned. Whether that can be blamed on the shock of her newly lost foot or the crash of hitting the ground or both is irrelevant. The result is the same.

 

Snuffling like a Kath hound with its snout dripping with blood, Kylo sidles forward, his left hand closed around his side as he shuts off his own lightsaber. The pain throbs out of tempo with the crunch of his booted footsteps. He staggers, the taxation of fighting two people back to back while wounded catching up to him. Kylo closes his fist and pounds the gore-soaked fissure again. He has no need to spike his energy and fuel the dark side roiling around him anymore, but it helps him focus, or so he tells himself. His vision darkens at the edges and all he can see is the off-center, discolored splotch of her body marring the landscape.

 

He stands over the scavenger for a moment, swallowing her in his shadow, head hanging in a way that belies the pride he should feel as the victor. Nevertheless, he drinks in the triumph.

 

It does not taste like what he expects.

 

He had gotten a sample when he incapacitated that double-crossing drone, but as he looks down at her all his palate registers is the way his wound and hers taint the snow-polished air.

 

The girl starts to move, her breath rushing back to her. Kylo goes to retrieve his grandfather’s lightsaber before she can get any ideas. It belongs to him, rightfully won, he thinks in a way that feels more empty than he imagined. He bends over to pick it up this time. He does not think he could pull it to him with the Force even if he wanted to. The Force whispers, distant, and something in Kylo fractures at the sudden idea that he has done something wrong.

 

He shakes his head. All of this—

 

his lightsaber’s ragged blade pierces cleanly through Han Solo but not cleanly enough he still looks aware far too aware the light in his eyes does not go out at once he is able to stare Kylo Ren right in the face to see to touch the killer of not just him but his son too the hurt that should not arise in him but does regardless compounds when across the planets and stars and moons and darkness yawning betwixt he feels Leia Organa’s heart turn to ash the scavenger the soldier the Wookie all scream all deliver the wordless message that there is no going back

 

—is destiny.

 

She reaches out to try to stop him because she has not yet comprehended that she lost. Her bare hand has become a frostnipped red. Kylo lifts the lightsaber hilt out of reach. Had it been anyone else, he would have entertained the idea of stomping on the fingers and grinding them under his heel. It is her, though, so he contents himself with nudging them away with the toe of his boot.  

 

She scowls at him and grabs at his ankle, turning onto her front and bending one of her knees as if to try to get up with him as support. Unfortunately for her, she tries to put her weight on the burnt, uneven nub. She screams again. Kylo despises how his guts quail on her behalf. The scavenger girl’s grip on his ankle slips and she curls up on her side in the snow. She gasps through her teeth, scrunching her eyes closed as she reaches out to touch near the injury.

 

Kylo studies her as he clips his lightsaber to his belt and jams the newly acquired one between his belt and his torso on his right side, ignoring the discomfort that comes with it.

 

Every story he had ever heard Luke Skywalker tell about the sensations of the loss of his hand comes flooding back. Skywalker always fudged the details of the whos and the wheres and the whys, but he always emphasized in great detail the severity of cutting off an extremity.

 

Deep within Kylo’s mind, Ben Solo’s corpse stares at him with arraignment in his dull brown eyes.

 

Kylo crouches down on one knee, genuflecting to his fallen opponent. The scavenger’s eyes open wide. He pays no mind to the way that she hisses for him to stay back or the way she writhes when he picks her up. Kylo puts her over his right shoulder, one arm wrapped around her slight waist, and stands. He does not have the strength to offer a gesture in the form of a more elegant hold.

 

She pounds his back and kicks him in the stomach with her remaining foot. She calls him a monster again. Kylo only assures her that he will have her injury treated. He stares down at the cauterized flesh as he does so and pats the thigh of her injured leg with the hand not braced against her torso.

 

The darkness around the edges of his vision has become a permanent fixture along with a couple of dots of white where snow catches on his lashes. He has to take care not to fall and have his weight come crashing down on top of her. Adding broken bones to the mix would not make her any more agreeable or easy to carry.

 

The girl continues to struggle as he starts walking. She is a tawny, oversized sparrow attempting to thrash her wings even if she will drop back to the ground upon release. Kylo wishes he could use the Force to put her under, but attempting to get a hold on the ever-present energy at the moment is like grasping at the silvery white clouds that are his breath in the frigid air.

 

Dimly, Kylo realizes that he pants through his mouth. The vapor that arises from between his lips are nothing compared to the smoke that has begun to rise from Starkiller’s oscillator. The planet is collapsing. He does not need the Force to know that.

 

Kylo’s grip on the scavenger tightens. He will not let any harm come to her. He grimaces as he qualifies that promise, looking at her leg—he will not let any more harm come to her, at least not by the dying amalgamation of ice and metal and sunlight.

 

Whether or not he will be able to stay his own hand from hurting her again is debatable.

 

The girl seems to have expended most of her energy. Her punches get fewer and farther between. Kylo feels relieved up until he realizes with the heaving of her chest and shaking of her shoulders that she is crying.

 

Is it over Han Solo’s death? The impending death of the traitor where he lays prostrate in the snow? Her own predicament?

 

In the latter case, Kylo can offer condolence. He reaffirms to her that he will get her fixed, good as new. For the barest moment, he leans his cheek against her hip. Her body feels icy wet from where she had fallen in the snow. He tells her he will help her.

 

She says nothing. She goes limp, wilting against his body. He does not have time to stop and see if the overpowering stress has caused her to faint or if she has finally given up as she should have done some time ago.

 

Kylo leaves spatters of blood behind him as he drags his boots through the snow toward a part of the base where he can get a ship before everything is blown to hell. Her wound leaves more subtle marks of a few charred bits of skin and flesh that flake off of her leg.

 

Once they are gone, both trails are smothered by the snow, then by ash, then are obliterated from existence along with everything else.


	2. Chapter 2

The ship that Kylo ends up acquiring is a TIE fighter that he rips a pair of stormtroopers from with a deft pull of the Force. What little energy and focus he has drains with the concentration it takes to use telekinesis. He almost drops the scavenger. Her body suddenly feels like it weighs as much as a full suit of Mandalorian iron armor draped over his shoulder. He resolves not to use the Force from here on out as he suffers through the headache and physical weakness that serves as the toll of him utilizing it.

 

The pleas and curses of the stormtroopers he had removed from the TIE fall on deaf ears as he climbs aboard the starfighter. Kylo arranges the girl in one seat and buckles her in with as much delicacy as he can spare given the fact that Starkiller Base crumbles into a massive deathtrap around them as he does so. Her head is slumped to one side and even unconscious her brow and lips are crumpled with anger and pain. The tears that she had shed were dried in tracks down her grimy cheeks.

 

Kylo has an absurd desire to cup her face in his hands even as he sees the planet’s crust crush inward with a spew of lava, Starkiller’s viscous blood, out of the corner of his eye through the TIE’s viewport. The TIE lurching to one side along with the hangar it is in beginning to collapse into a rift is what ends up breaking him out of his reverie. Closing the hatch drowns out the screams of the stormtroopers who had not managed to escape as they tumble to their miserable deaths, but the hull cannot quite stifle the cacophonous sound of the planet-turned-superweapon dying along with them.

 

After cramming his body into the opposite seat, Kylo launches the TIE out of the hangar just before the structure falls into the rift and is enveloped in lava. Kylo grits his teeth as he throttles the starfighter to its limit, ignoring best he can that his vision is melting into a blurry mess between how much blood he is losing and the speed with which the TIE hurtles upward. Escaping immediate death from the collapsing planet will mean nothing if he passes out and loses control of the ship.

 

The TIE makes it out of the rapidly-deteriorating atmosphere through a mixture of Kylo’s sheer willpower and the Force being with him (despite everything). The stars are smears of white and the space between them looks grayish if Kylo focuses on it too much. He does not look back at the explosion, but he sees the reflection of it in the interior of the viewport in a burst of light surrounding his grim, exhausted face and putting a bit of fire into his dark eyes.

 

He hopes that the commotion does not wake the girl up. He wishes that he could conceivably turn around and reach her, or at the very least look at her properly. The only awareness he has that she is with him at all is their connection in the Force, warm and tingling deep in his head, and the sickening stench of grime and burnt flesh emanating from her, overwhelmed only by the smell of his own rotting wounds.

 

His fixation on her is a distraction from the many lives yanked at once from the Force like threads in the fabric of the universe all torn asunder with Starkiller’s destruction. It pales in comparison to what he felt in heart and mind with the obliteration of the Hosnian system, but it still hurts, badly. Kylo squeezes his hands around the TIE’s controls to keep some part of himself grounded in the physical realm. It works, but he can feel a part of something deeper inside die along with the countless members of the First Order.

 

The First Order. He cannot bring her back to any of the remaining outposts or command ships. Snoke will be furious once he sees Kylo’s fixation on her has not ceased, misconstruing it as a characteristic affiliated with the light— _compassion_ , he had sneered at his apprentice. He will hurt her far more thoroughly and purposefully than Kylo could ever dream of doing for the sake of mere demonstration. Kylo Ren knows his master; it is very likely that he might go so far as to kill her. Bile rises in Kylo’s throat just thinking about it.

 

Where, then? Where else can he go?

 

Kylo squeezes his eyes shut, then opens them again. His wounds and his exhaustion make him feel faint, but he cannot afford to follow the scavenger into unconsciousness. The lesion the bowcaster made in his side has finally begun to clot, leaving dried blood caked on like a thin crust bound to break if he moves too much. He would aggravate that again to keep himself awake, but he is liable to just end up passing out from blood loss anyway. The cauterized lightsaber wound that FN-2187 left on his arm is fair game, though, so Kylo jams two fingers into it. His lips peel back from his teeth and his eyes squeeze shut with the initial pain arching through his arm like a million burning needles, but he gets momentarily startled out of tiredness. He has to thank the traitor for that much.

 

It occurs to him to wonder at the rogue trooper’s fate. He is probably nothing more than cosmic dust by now, if even that. The scavenger is going to be upset once she realizes. Kylo heaves a breath through his nose. FN-2187 had garnered her attentions and care where he could not. He hates him. Even knowing he probably got obliterated, he cannot shake it, he hates the mere idea of her investing her care in someone so worthless. Such a nothing scrap of life, barely a person, who thought he could be something by running away from the First Order, by taking up his grandfather’s lightsaber, by getting so close to the girl.

 

A muscle in Kylo’s face spasms. It is a blessing and a curse he is in far too confined of a space to pull out his lightsaber; otherwise he might throw a fit large enough to wreck the ship’s controls and oxygenating system and doom both himself and his passenger. He settles for punching the side of the dashboard— _Wham! Wham! Wham!_

  
Kylo lets out a strangled noise. There went the skin on one of his knuckles beneath his glove; he can feel the split drooling blood. He hisses between his teeth as he attempts to refocus.

 

Kylo’s sense of navigation has always been limited and the same can be said of the TIE’s short-range nav computer. Even so, he can tell that in his aimless fleeing he is skewing farther into the Unknown Regions at top speed. He needs to land somewhere before both his mind and the ship drift too far into wild space.

  
All of the planets this far out in the galaxy are icy and miserable. It is a simple matter of just picking the one that seems the least ghastly.

 

It matters little what dangers await them, Kylo Ren thinks. So long as he keeps her with him, he will try to keep her safe from danger. The thought is cloying and sweeter than raw honey. If only it had been some charming flirt that had come up with such a sentiment about her instead of her enemy on the field of war.

 

Is this really what constitutes compassion, or just his own off-brand imitation of it? The smell of her wound burns in his nostrils, regardless.

 

The trademark scream of the TIE’s engines initially covers up the sound of the girl waking up, but a tug in the back of his head lets him know. He is aware she will not be complacent, that is not in her nature, but he is still startled by what she ends up doing. Her hand slides into the gap between the seat and the inner wall of the TIE and tries to make a grab at one of the lightsabers at Kylo’s hip.

 

Kylo slams his elbow down on top of her hand without much thought, crushing it against the armrest. He grimaces, more at himself for instantly contradicting his mental vow not to hurt her anymore than her attempt to disarm him. The girl lets out an angry, pained cry, and Kylo has to wonder whether or not he managed to do more than bruise her, if there had been a crunch of bone with the impact. He takes his elbow off.

 

“I didn’t—I… don’t do things like that, scavenger,” Kylo says as she retracts her hand and curses him. “Were you planning on igniting a lightsaber in here? You’d kill us both.”

 

Though he cannot properly see her without craning his neck, he can hear the vitriol in her voice just fine as she replies, “I’d rather be dead than trapped with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided after a while that I'm going to continue this.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is entirely based around [a couple of seconds](https://youtu.be/rWF0f183tSA?t=57) when during the snow fight Rey clambers up an outcropping to get away from Kylo and he makes a couple of slashes at her feet. 
> 
> Comments are hugged to my chest and loved. [Feel free to talk to me/send me requests on tumblr.](http://cobwebbing.tumblr.com/)


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